Damn you (and your evidently abundant free time), Scalzi! I’ve been tossing out next band names for slightly less time as you have, and crediting you whenever anyone asked what I was on about. Now, everyone is just going to sneer at me with “Oh, you just stole that from that website by that one guy.” Damn you, I say. Fie!

A few years ago on Diggnation, Alex and Kevin were discussing a story about some drug experimenters gave to rats. Somehow the conversation turned to unpleasant side effects, and Kevin opined that the drug may cause the rats’ penises to burn and we’d never know it. Since then, I’ve vowed that one day I’d create a punk band and name it “Burning Penis Rats.”

Actually, the Band Name of the Year award goes to my buddies, The Damn Quails, who are a real band (quite up-and-coming in the Red Dirt/Alt-Country world), and no, they didn’t get the name from the politician. But if everyone wants to think they did, well, that’s fine.

You are a strange and amazing man. If my housemate, who actually owns the house, would let me have a bunch of ferrets, I would totally nickname the Ravenous Mustelids! (Never fear, I would feed them well, but still, that’s just too funny.)